1,957 entries categorized "Hispanic Business"

November 16, 2016Source: Santa Monica ObserverCalifornia's second annual Growing Together Latino Farmer Conference was held in Monterey, Calif., to provide tools and resources to help farmers and ranchers be successful on their land.

Nearly 300 farmers are in attendance, which is being conducted in Spanish and translated into English for all attendees.

"The resources and people here today helped me achieve the success that I have now," said Javier Zamora, farmer and keynote speaker. "They are key to your success as a farmer or rancher as well."

Hosted by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the conference is open to all farmers and ranchers and is translated into English, with translation headsets. Conducting the conference in Spanish provides an enriched learning experience for much of the targeted Latino audience.

"Hispanic farmers and ranchers are a dynamic growing demographic in California and this conference aims to help Spanish-speaking farmers share, learn and grow in their native language," said Carlos Suarez, state conservationist for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in California.

Three different workshops follow an opening keynote address by Zamora, an organic farmer and leading conservation steward and educator. Each attendee has an opportunity to attend two subjects of interest. The workshops include: Access to Capital and USDA Resources, Soil Health, Efficient Use of Water, Beekeeping, and Marketing. The conference will conclude with a Latino farmer panel representing a diverse cross section of California agriculture.

This is the second year of this conference in California.

NCAT, a nonprofit, has been promoting sustainable living for over 35 years. In recent years, their agriculture work has focused on small-scale intensive farming, urban farming, local foods, and assistance to small farmers and beginning and new farmers.

NRCS is the lead USDA partner involved. NRCS has provided leadership in a partnership effort to help America's private landowners and managers conserve their soil, water and other natural resources since 1935.

Ontario-based Cardenas Markets has been sold to a partnership of two investment firms, according to both parties.

New York’s KKR and Chicago’s Victory Park Capital , have also purchased the Mi Pueblo chain, which, like Cardenas, caters to a Hispanic market. It’s based in San Jose and has locations throughout Southern California, including Perris, Santa Ana and Norwalk.

“KKR and Victory Park will be making investments in both Cardenas Markets and Mi Pueblo, along with the ownership of both businesses, including the Cardenas family,” according to a statement from Cara Kleiman, a spokesperson for KKR.

“We are not disclosing financial details, but expect that these new investments will create positive momentum and allow us to better service their communities and valued customers, while also growing Mi Pueblo and Cardenas Markets, creating new jobs, and offering long and rewarding career paths for executives and employees,” the statement says.

Cardenas has 33 stores operating throughout Southern California and the Las Vegas area. The company employs about 3,000 people.

With 19 stores, Mi Pueblo entered bankruptcy protection in 2013, exiting the next year with a $56 million injection of financing from Victory Park Capital.

According to industry publication The Shelby Report, the new owners will operate the two chains separately “for the time being.”

“We are very excited about our new partnership with KKR global investments,” Marco Robles, spokesman for Cardenas, said by phone. “This affords us a great opportunity to expand our reach in the grocery industry and into communities not presently served by Cardenas.”

Robles said Cardenas plans to hire more employees because he said the company would be expanding under its new ownership.

Cardenas’ headquarters are located near the intersection of Archibald Avenue and the 10 Freeway, where it also has its 470,000-square-foot distribution center, 2501 East Guasti Road.

One of two things could be happening with this purchase, retail and grocery store expert Craig Rosenblum, a partner with the consumer goods and retail consulting firm Willard Bishop, said. The question is whether this is a strategic financial play to allow KKR entry into the Hispanic supermarket business — or a real estate play “given the location of where their stores are today.”

“There’s plenty of other Hispanic grocers, so what they’re going to need to do is figure out how to differentiate Mi Pueblo and Cardenas in the marketplace so shoppers want to shop their stores,” he said.

Rosenblum said the best in the sector is Anaheim-based Northgate González Markets, “with what they’ve been doing with remodels, food service and so on.”

Rosenblum is watching to see whether KKR is interested in acquiring other Hispanic markets in Southern California.

“Are they finished? Is this just the beginning,” Rosenblum asked. “Are there other potentials given the competitive nature of the market. … There might potentially be others KKR is looking at.”

The first Cardenas Market opened in Ontario in 1981. Company expansion took off in the 1990s after the success of the company’s sixth store in Pomona, Robles said in a 2013 interview for an article about the passing of company founder Jesus Cardenas.

Robles said a key signature of the stores is the family atmosphere, and the themed architecture and decor of the supermarket’s interior.

In advance of the holiday shopping season, BODEN and QuestMindshare unveiled The Latina SmartPurse, a new research initiative focused on the Hispanic female in the United States that takes a deep dive into the modern Latina consumer, her influence, and what she expects from brands when making purchasing decisions.

"We are seeing a continental shift in Latina females and their role in our society and economy; they are playing many roles as business owners, mothers, cultural evangelists and societal influencers," said Natalie Boden, president of BODEN, in a press release. "The Latina SmartPurse study shows us that there is no better time than now for brands to invest in Latinas as a key consumer segment within the U.S. landscape."

According to a 2015 study by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, the number of Hispanics living in the U.S. has more than doubled. At 54 million, Hispanics now make up the largest ethnic minority in the country. Currently, one in five women in the U.S. is Hispanic and will comprise nearly one third of the country's female population by 2060.

The study shows they are bicultural, more educated than ever before, and armed with information from channels of trust. Latinas are showing their affinity toward brands that acknowledge their rise and power and align with personal values.

The new study also reveals Latina females wield tremendous purchasing power as part of the $1 trillion spend among Hispanics and approximately $7 trillion spend among U.S. females. Recognizing and celebrating Hispanic culture creates mega-crossover opportunities for brands to connect with them.

Additionally, findings in The Latina SmartPurse study include:

Latinas earn nearly 50% or more of their household incomeMore than 57% agree that they are more likely to purchase a brand if their social media content reflects their Hispanic culture65% agree that it is important for brands to develop content specifically for Latinas70% care more about quality than priceLatinas spend an average of 5 hours a day on social media channels to connect with family and friends, research products, and follow brands they trust"Understanding the power the Latina holds in U.S. households is key to earning her purchasing dollars. It goes beyond being culturally relevant; it's about engaging her with content that speaks to her preferences, her triumphs and her ever-evolving identity, and providing her with the tools to continue to help her succeed in the U.S. today," Boden added.

The Latina SmartPurse study was an online survey fielded nationally in April and May 2016 among 2,024 Hispanic females from 18 to 54 years of age, with 24% Spanish dominant and 76% English dominant.

Most of the books in Spanish found in the U.S. market are imported from Spain and Latin America, and distributors and wholesalers have played a significant role in making Spanish-language titles from large and midsize overseas publishers available here. As demand for Spanish-language books in the U.S. has grown, more independent and smaller presses are making their way into the market via established and new distributors.

One of the newest distributors to enter the market is Miami-based American Book Group (ABG), which began representing publishers from Mexico and Spain in 2015. Some of the Mexican publishers that it represents are Grupo Planeta’s BookIt series and its Diana imprint, children’s publisher Tres Abejas, New Age publisher Acqua Ediciones, and Sélector USA, a joint initiative between ABG and Mexico’s Editorial Sélector. ABG’s Spanish clients include Editorial Sol 90, which offers books with beautiful computer-generated illustrations.

ABG’s director of sales, Ernesto Martinez, attributes the company’s early success in signing clients to having a warehouse in Miami, giving publishers access to the U.S. market through print-on-demand, and distributing e-books.

In addition to working with foreign publishers, ABG has found a niche in representing major U.S. houses that publish Spanish-language books to independent bookstores. “Many independent-bookstore owners want to offer books in Spanish but don’t know the language or the market well enough to make a selection that will appeal to their consumers,” Martinez explains. “We help them in selecting titles. It’s really about consultative selling.”

ABG primarily sells to independent bookstores, libraries, wholesalers, museums, and schools, as well as Hispanic retailers such as Hispanic grocery stores and retailers focused on meeting the needs of the Hispanic consumer. When asked what makes ABG different from other distributors, Martinez says that, unlike other distributors, “we are not here to disrupt the market, but to offer our service to publishers.” He adds, “We have a focus on metadata and making sure the complete information is available. We are also very selective in the titles we offer and provide consulting services to buyers.”

ABG has also expanded into publishing. In addition to the recently launched Sélector USA imprint, ABG publishes a series called MariaGarcia: Tu Guía Latina (Maria Garcia: Your Latina Guide), a series of practical how-to books, where part of the content is delivered through the book and additional information is available on a dedicated website.

Lectorum is a well-established and growing distributor that has been in business for 56 years and that was purchased by Alex Correa in 2009. The company works with more than 200 publishers and has a wide selection of children’s and YA books, which make up 70% of its catalogue, with adult trade titles comprising the remaining 30%. Of the books that it distributes, close to 80% are imported from Spain and Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia are its primary providers). The balance of its list comes from domestic publishers and consists mainly of nonfiction books.

Lectorum is the sole distributor of Spanish-language books for the Chicago and New York City public school systems. School and library sales represent about 50% of Lectorum’s total while the other half comes from retail chains, distributors, and wholesalers.

Over the past few years, according to Correa, the category product mix has changed: “In the past, about 40% of our sales were fiction and 60% nonfiction, but the market has transformed and now the numbers have inverted.” He attributes much of the change to the effect transformations in school curriculums have had on the school market, where demand for fables and for fiction books has increased.

The types of books requested from libraries and the trade market have not changed much in the last couple of years, with translations often doing better than original works in Spanish. In the school market, however, the demand is still strong for original works in Spanish and for books that reflect the colloquial language and the local culture from a wide range of countries.

Dual-language programs in the school market have also fueled the demand for books in Spanish. “Places you would not think of having a high demand for books in Spanish, such as Utah, are creating a shift that is inclusive instead exclusive of non-Hispanics,” Correa says. “Dual-language or bilingual programs are designed for Hispanic and non-Hispanic children—they are designed for a global generation.”

One of Lectorum’s bestsellers for 2016 is Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School, which has sold more than 10,000 copies thus far this year. Another bestseller has been a Cuban cookbook by Veronica Cervera, La cocina Cubana de Vero. In October, Lectorum began distributing the international bestseller El monstruo de colores (The Colored Monster).

Although Correa has an eye for which books will work in the U.S., he is at times surprised by the success of certain titles. For the 20th-anniversary edition of El flamboyant amarillo (The Yellow Flamboyant), by Puerto Rican author Georgina Lazaro, published this year, he expected sales of about 3,000 copies, but in eight months Lectorum sold more than 12,000 copies. Another surprise has been La calle es libre (The Street Is Free) by Kurusa Monika Doppert, a book with annual sales of about 600 copies, but which this year has already sold more than 8,000 copies. “Some books become classics and with time school districts include them in the curriculum and that can have a huge impact on the number of copies sold,” Correa explains.

Lectorum’s plan for the Guadalajara International Book Fair is to provide visiting U.S. librarians and educators with tablets equipped with scanners so that they can create their own wish lists of books. Additionally, a day before FIL, Lectorum will take its clients to visit a local vendor of DVDs and CDs and have staff on hand to help the clients with the selection process.

IPG has a long history of distributing books in Spanish and, over the past few years, has been growing its list of publishers and titles. This year alone, IPG added six new publishers to its roster of more than 40 Spanish-language publishers. About 80% of those publishers come from countries with large publishing industries, such as Spain, Mexico, and Argentina.

IPG has exclusive U.S., Canadian, and Puerto Rican distribution rights for many of the publishers that it works with. Children’s and YA books make up about 70% of IPG’s offering, with the remaining 30% coming from adult fiction and nonfiction. In general, nonfiction sells better than fiction for IPG. The distributor’s top accounts are Amazon, Brodart, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor, with the school and library market doing better than retailers.

Diana Calice, managing director of IPG’s Spanish distribution program, says that the company has added new clients to respond to shifts in the marketplace. “The sale of books in Spanish has been increasing and I think that part of it is due to a new generation of Hispanics and non-Hispanics that want to learn Spanish,” she says. Calice explains that often parents don’t speak Spanish but want their children to learn the language. That trend has sparked sales of bilingual books, which allow parents to read along with their children. IPG offers a specialty catalogue of just bilingual books and books that are available in both languages.

One of IPG’s bestselling authors is Walter Riso, published by Editorial Océano of Mexico. Calice points out that Riso’s books consistently do well in the U.S. market and that his latest book, Maravillosamente imperfecto, escandalosamente feliz (Beautifully Imperfect Outrageously Happy) had great presale numbers before it even reached their warehouse in September. Another bestseller for IPG is El único e incomparable Iván (The One and Only Ivan) by Catherine Applegate—a 2013 Newberry Award winner that Calice says “continuously sells outrageously well.”

In general, children’s and YA books do well for IPG, with YA in translation doing better than original works in Spanish, Calice says, noting that there is less of a YA offering from Spanish-language publishers than from their U.S. counterparts. Self-help for adults continues to do exceptionally well, Calice adds.

Bilingual Publications Company is a boutique operation that selects each title with urban libraries in mind. Owned by Linda Goodman, Bilingual Publications currently works with about 100 publishers, of which 60% are from Spain, 15% are from Mexico, 5% are from other countries (Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico), and about 20% are from the U.S. Goodman notes that, to meet the growing demand for books from Central America, Bilingual Publications will be looking for them at FIL. Its product offering is evenly split between children’s/YA and adult trade. Goodman says that the strongest demand among children and young adults is for fiction, whereas for adult books there is greater demand for nonfiction. A recent strong area in adult nonfiction has been for practical self-help books.

Bilingual Publications clients are public libraries in the U.S., with an emphasis on urban, big-city libraries. “These libraries have a greater need for culturally diverse books in Spanish,” Goodman says.

One of the trends that Goodman has seen in the last couple of years has been a growing demand in adult collection building at libraries. She explains that librarians are being asked by their patrons for more books on home repair, computer skills, raising children, and health and wellness. Goodman has also seen a decrease in the demand for literary fiction, but has seen a growing demand for light fiction such as chick lit and romance. Comics as well as manga are also seeing an increase in sales, and YA sales are going through impressive growth.

Although Baker & Taylor is a wholesaler and not a distributor, it is still an important provider of books in Spanish to the U.S. market. About three years ago, B&T stopped importing material from Spain and Latin America and now relies on distributors. “B&T still stocks material in Spanish, but only from U.S.-based publishers and those offered by U.S.-based distributors,” says Diane Mangan, director of merchandising, children’s, basics, small press, Spanish, and digital at B&T.

B&T currently works with around 250 Spanish-language publishers. Approximately 80% of B&T’s sales come from an estimated 20% of these publishers. As is the case with B&T’s distributors, most of the publishers B&T works with are from Spain, with Mexico and Argentina following in second and third place. B&T has between 50,000–60,000 active Spanish-language titles at any given time with about 250 new releases being offered every month.

Mangan explains that literary and historical fiction are doing very well, but that adult nonfiction still accounts for about 35% of B&T’s sales. A similar percentage of its sales comes from children’s and YA, and the balance from adult fiction. Not surprisingly, one of its bestsellers this year is the new Harry Potter title Harry Potter y el legado maldito (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). Another title that is doing very well is the latest novel by Nobel Prize–winner Mario Vargas Llosa, Cinco esquinas (Five Points).

B&T’s sales of books in Spanish are split between school and public libraries and between online and bricks-and-mortar retailers. B&T continues to see a very strong increase in the sales of Spanish-language books—a 33% increase over last year, with purchases from public libraries up 40% over last year. When asked about B&T’s future plans, Mangan says, “We plan to continue working with the current business model, as it allows us to stock more titles and a higher number of copies of each title.”

Although each of the distributors sees slightly different trends occurring in the market (largely dependent on who their primary customers are—schools, public libraries, trade, etc.), one common denominator is the growing demand for books in Spanish. With the consolidation of the major publishers, customers are turning to smaller and more niche publishers to satisfy that demand.

Toyota Corp.'s Lexus is showing off its impressive sound system to Hispanic music lovers with an online episodic series that takes a look at different Latin music genres.

Latin pop sensation Raquel Sofía is touring the top cities in United States known for their Latin music scenes in an online video series to take a look at the respective genres popular in each city. The VidaLexus RPM series will see Ms. Sofia putting a new pop spin on the classic genres, which viewers can keep listening to by downloading the EP on Spotify.

"The importance of Lexus launching this new campaign allows the brand to reach one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic demographics in the U.S.," said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis. "By engaging the music industry with local artists in several cities with a tour that could spur the interest of the millennials that celebrates the cultural diversity of the Hispanic market, this campaign could grow the loyal base of consumers for Lexus over time exponentially.

"The median age of the Hispanic U.S. market is under 30, and is primarily growing by US born Hispanic citizens not immigration," she said. "The importance of this is that this market is second generation Hispanic citizens and by embedding Lexus as a strong brand for latinos will help grow the brand."

Driving music innovationThe luxury automaker is providing a full-bodied, unique campaign to entice Latin music lovers. Ms. Sofia will be the host of the show, which will air on a weekly basis.

VidaLexus RPM will follow Ms. Sofia as she travels to four U.S. cities with massive Hispanic populations: Miami, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Each city is known for its own genre of Latin music, which will be showcased in the videos.

Throughout the series local artists will be featured, who will then perform with Ms. Sofia in a way that combines the city’s classic genre with her modern pop style. Each song will be available for download on Spotify by Sony Music Latin.

Musicians and products that will be featured on the series include Mr. Pauer, DJ Le Spam from Spam All Stars, Tony Smurfio from Afrobeta, Ulises Lozano from Kinky and Marcelo Tijerina from Mexican Dubwiser. The trip began on Nov. 7 starting in Miami, and will then move to New York, Chicago and end in Los Angeles.

Original songs from the series will be featured in music videos as well, appearing on VidaLexus.com.

A series of backup content such as clips and photographs will be shared throughout social media, on Lexus’ official Twitter account as well as Ms. Sofia’s and with the hashtag #VidaLexusRPM. The episodes themselves will air on Web sites a part of the ImpreMedia network such as LaOpinion.com, LaRaza.com, LaPrensa.com and ElDiarioNY.com.

Driving marketing innovationLexus often adapts to various genres and advertising tools to appeal to all consumers.

For instance, the automaker was among the brands to see significant improvement in responsiveness to mobile advertisements that incorporate TouchSense technology.

Working with advertising and marketing platform Opera Mediaworks and Immersion, the developer of TouchSense technology, Lexus saw sizable increases in click-through rates, completed views, replay rates and ad recall for touch-enabled ads. As mobile use increases and brands fight to engage viewers saturated with advertising, haptic ads offer a way to stand out.

Lexus also peeked into the world of celebrity correspondents to make an impression on young consumers.

The brand’s digital content channel L/Studio’s series, “Junketeers” was available to watch on Comedy Central. The networks’ large audience, as well as the abundance of celebrities in the series, attracted a millennial audience that will help sustain Lexus’ future growth plans.

"This is a unique campaign in that Lexus is focusing on a very specific demographic to grow that market segment for a luxury brand, by celebrating the uniqueness of their culture and by blending this with the classical elements of a luxury product," Ms. Troutman said.

It would be easy to typecast Sean and Kenny Salas as young entrepreneurs who think their new high-tech venture can do well by doing good.

But the motivation behind Camino Financial, a Los Angeles-based online marketplace that seeks to connect underserved Latino small businesses with online lenders, runs deeper than the average business plan.

When the twin brothers were 12 years old, their mother lost her business — a chain of 30 restaurants that she had run in Southern California for 25 years — because of a lack of needed financing. Their parents took six kids back to their hometown in Mexico to start over. The brothers ultimately overcame that life setback, but it instilled in them a strong appreciation for the target market they are trying to serve today.

"We are giving [lenders] access to the underbanked Latino business market, and that's a huge value because it's the largest and fastest-growing underbanked business segment in the United States," said Sean Salas, who is scheduled to speak Thursday at American Banker's Small-Business Banking conference in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Indeed, Hispanic businesses' growth rate has been 2.5 times that of all U.S. firms since 2012, and they are expected to contribute about $668 billion in revenue to the national economy in 2016, according to a report this year by Geoscape, a research firm that focuses on Latino commerce.

Camino aims to provide access to loans to businesses that have been operating for at least a year, earn a minimum monthly revenue of $8,500 and are without credit delinquencies 24 months before applying for credit. Its current focus is on loans with terms of one to five years and with a price range of 4.99% to 5.49%.

"We are targeting the Latino market that is currently getting mainly served by merchant cash advance providers" who are charging interest rates of 30% or above, Kenny Salas said.

The company had raised $2.75 million of capital as of August and attracted 2,000 small-business owners to apply for loans on their platform that are offered by 14 participating online lenders. Camino is on the verge of announcing a partnership with a community bank, the brothers said.

One of Camino's roles is to provide its own credit analyses of the loan candidates.

"Underwriting the loans is fundamental. The credit considerations are unique to this market," Sean Salas said. "We work with 14 lending partners. We know what gets approval, what doesn't get approval. … And we identified nuances in the credit of this market that we are comfortable to lend to whereas other lenders would not. And we translated that expertise into our own proprietary credit-scoring and credit-underwriting algorithm."

That work has occurred over several years and is more than their quick stab at a hot trend, the brothers said.

"It's really a longtime journey," Sean Salas said. "It's not a heat-of-the-moment thing, not a trend we want to capitalize on. No, this goes very far back."

Return to the U.S.

Several years after the family business folded, Sean and Kenny, then 20 years old, returned to the U.S. with two bus tickets and their laptops after getting scholarships from the University of California, Berkeley. They both obtained BAs in the political economy of industrial societies.

They became actively involved in Latino-oriented student organizations and other nonprofit organizations in school. "We began to identify what it meant to be Latino," Kenny Salas said.

And that can carry a wide range of realizations with it. "It does have racial polarization," he said.

An internship program offered by Sponsors for Educational Opportunity — a nonprofit organization working to help minority students — gave the two talented brothers the chance to work on Wall Street. Sean worked at UBS and later ICV Partners, a New York City-based private-equity firm. And Kenny worked at Barclays Capital and then at Palladium Equity Partners, a private-equity company with a focus on investing in the U.S. Hispanic market.

They then attended Harvard Business School from 2013 to 2015. Sean came up with the idea of starting Camino Financial and launched a test product in July 2014, the summer after his second semester at the school. Kenny and their older sister, Yvette Salas, joined the effort, and the brothers leveraged their business school connections to consult with alumni and build the team.

How Much Competition?

During two years of refining their business model, Camino's founders have sought out clients, assessing the credit of the clients using their own credit-scoring algorithm. The brothers, now 32 years old, stressed that they are doing good for the Latino business owners by not only offering them loans that they cannot get, or easily get, from traditional banks, but also by providing them free financial consulting services and education through partnerships with nonprofit entities and small-businesses development centers.

And bank asset consolidation reduces the number of community banks which are oftentimes the main lenders to small businesses, according to a Harvard Business School study in 2014 about how technology could lower barriers to small-business lending.

Moreover, high transaction and other costs also make it difficult for banks to earn a high enough profit. "Transaction costs to process a $100,000 loan are comparable to a $1 million loan, but with less profit," the paper said. "As a result, banks are less likely to engage in lending at the smallest-dollar level."

Camino touts that its customers can get up to $500,000 as fast as four days after applying for a loan on its website and consulting with a financial expert. It charges a fee of 2% to 3% of the loan — but the Salas brothers refused to call it a commission.

"The actual entity paying the fee is essentially the lender we work with, and they are essentially sharing the origination fee that they already charged the client," Sean Salas said.

However, Brian Riley, the credit advisory service director at Mercator Advisory Group, said customers are the ones who pay the fee. "It doesn't matter who is paying the fee or where the fee is coming from," he said. "It's priced into the loan one way or another, whether it's through the interest rate of a loan or some other terms."

And it faces plenty of competition despite its niche orientation, Riley said. "It does address the Latino community, and it has an interesting management team," but it is not unique, he said.

The past decade has witnessed a number of online lenders and intermediaries that target small businesses, and their business models are more mature. OnDeck Capital, founded in 2007, is publicly traded, has operations in the U.S., Canada and Australia, and has made $4 billion of loans to more than 40,000 small-businesses owners. Biz2Credit has arranged more than $1.5 billion in small-business funding. Lendio has been in the business more than 10 years, Fundera has gained a lot of attention for its Borrower's Bill of Rights to enhance transparency of online lenders, and MultiFunding is partnering with cooperating community banks to provide loans.

Still, Camino's focus on serving the Latino market gives it a lot of growth room, Riley said. "Banks are traditionally not doing an overall great job of that," he said. "Serving that need makes it powerful. Across the United States, Latinos are growing significantly."

Next Model

The Salas brothers said they will announce a partnership with a community bank this month, and they hope it will give Camino a large allocation of capital to deploy using its second-generation credit scoring algorithm.

Under that model, Camino receives the full origination fee from the borrowers, and the community bank also gives service fees to Camino based on the performance of the loan. The bank gets to keep what it collects minus those fees.

"That's where we see the future of our model going," Sean Salas said. "The reason why it's exciting and we like it is that [banks only pay] a fee if the model works, if people are paying back."

Their goal is to originate at least $1 billion in the next five to seven years, and they predict the market opportunity for small businesses seeking alternative loans is $6.8 billion.

At the small-business conference, Sean Salas plans to discuss the great potential of the Latino market and also how community banks can partner with fintech companies such as Camino as well as the challenges along the way.

A fact sheet prepared by the Democratic staff of the congressional Joint Economic Committee under the direction of ranking member Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), said that the 56 million Latino Americans living in the U.S. account for $1.3 trillion in economic activity, and that Latino households enjoyed the largest percentage gain in median income in 2015.

According to a release, the update of the panel's "The Economic State of the Latino Community In America" states that Latino "contributions are projected to top $1.7 trillion by 2020. Latinos own 3.3 million businesses in the United States, accounting for more than 40 percent of all minority-owned businesses. Together, those businesses generate almost $500 billion in economic activity annually."

The fact sheet also indicated: "In 2015, real median income of all Latino households was $45,150, up $2,600 (6.1 percent) from 2014. Despite that increase, income for the typical Hispanic household was $17,800 less than the median income of non-Hispanic white households ($62,950)."

According to the fact sheet, Latino unemployment, currently at 6.4 percent, remains above the average for non-Hispanic white workers and the overall U.S. population, but it is well below the August 2009 Latino unemployment rate of 13 percent. Hispanics are the second-fastest growing minority population in the U.S.

Black applicants in Houston were more than twice as likely to be denied for mortgages than whites in 2015, according to recently released federal data.

While overall access to home loans has improved in recent years, black and Hispanic borrowers continue to be denied mortgages at higher rates than whites and Asians here and nationwide, a recent report shows.

Last year, 22.4 percent of black applicants were denied conventional loans, according to data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and presented in a report from real estate firm Zillow. That's down from 2010, when 30.5 percent of black applicants were denied. Among Hispanic applicants, 17.3 percent were denied in 2015, down from 25 percent in 2010.

In comparison, 10.4 percent of all conventional loan applications were denied in 2015, a drop from 14.2 percent in 2010.

Across the Houston region, denial rates for blacks and Hispanics were 17.7 percent and 14.6 percent, respectively, while white applicants were denied at a 6.9 percent rate. Asian applicants were denied at a 12 percent rate.

Overall in Houston, 9.9 percent of all loan applications were denied in 2015.

The homeownership gap between black and white households is as wide in 2016 as it has been for the past century, Zillow said.

"Owning a home is an important way for the middle class to build personal wealth. It's encouraging to see more black and Hispanic borrowers getting approved for mortgages, but there's still a lot of progress that needs to be made," chief economist Svenja Gudell said in a statement.

Zillow's report also includes data on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

Customers regularly stop by the Mac store at the Biltmore Fashion Park looking to buy the new Selena cosmetics line a month after the collection sold out, evidence of the growing purchasing power of Latinas in Arizona.

Those same customers are among Selena fans who signed a petition asking MAC to create the Selena collection, inspired by the rising star who was murdered 20 years ago. The makeup went on sale at stores across the country October 6th and sold out in a few hours.

The success is testament to the power of Latinas who in are a major reason for the growth of sales for the beauty and cosmetics industry. Last year, while sales in cosmetics decreased by 1.2 percent overall, they grew 7.4 percent among Hispanics according Nielsen, a company that studies consumers and their buying habits.

In Arizona Latino purchasing power is expected to total $42 Billion according to the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce study DATOS:The State of of Arizona’s Hispanic Market.

“The power of Selena’s fans is astounding. Their overwhelming passion and excitement inspired the creation of M·A·C Selena and is the reason for its sell-out success and record-breaking traffic to our website,” said James Gager, MAC’s Senior Vice President/Group Creative Director, in a release.

And some of those fans took to social media to show off their collection while others expressed their frustration after waiting in line for hours only to walk away empty handed.

“She is someone that inspired me as a little girl. Basically I was a big fan of her and now that MAC came out with her collection it was a must,” said Gabriela Elizalde, makeup artist in Peoria.

Elizalde, a makeup artist for 11 years used to work for MAC. She thought she’d have no trouble getting the Selena collection but found out on the day it went on sale that it was likely to sell out from a friend got in line at 5:30 in the morning and called to tell her about the crowd. He picked up some makeup for Elizalde who was among the women waiting for the launch of the new line.

“It really means a lot to me because I met her in 1993,”

Elizalde is using the Selena makeup she has sparingly because MAC won’t be able to restock the collection until January.

Come spring, shoppers in north Tulsa will have a new option for groceries — a Supermercados Morelos.

The Hispanic grocery store chain plans to open its seventh Oklahoma location at the intersection of Pine Street and Harvard Avenue, adding a grocery store to an area of the city where the options are few and far between.

In June 2015, the chain bought the whole strip mall at the northeast corner of the intersection after being told that the owners weren’t looking to rent space, just to sell. They got a building permit late last week and have begun reconfiguring the interior of the strip center for what will be 15,000-square-foot grocery store.

It will have a dine-in restaurant and bakery when it opens sometime around March of 2017.

Manuel Gomez, co-owner of the grocery store chain with Francisco Ibarra, said they chose the site because they realized there was untapped demand on the north side of town.

He estimated about 40 percent of the customers who come to the east Tulsa store are from the north side of town. The store at 21st Street and Garnett Road had gotten so crowded during busy times, he said, that even more staffing wasn’t helping customers get what they need.

The north Tulsa store will employ about 30 people.Supermercados Morelos currently has two locations in Tulsa and three in the Oklahoma City area, with another one under construction.

Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Francisco Trevino said Hispanics are the majority at Tulsa Public Schools, and the elementary schools near the planned store are full of Hispanic students.

While it’s a Hispanic grocery store, Gomez said he knows all local residents are going to shop there.Tulsa City Councilor David Patrick agreed.

“The man is a businessman,” Patrick said of Gomez. “He knows that he has to put products in there that people will buy.”

When Patrick was a child, the shopping center was full of businesses. Over the years it had “dwindled down to nothing,” he said.

“I think it would be great for the area. There’s nothing really close. They have to go quite a ways to shop,” Patrick said. “It’s been without retail development for quite some time. People need places to shop in their local neighborhoods.”

The northern part of Tulsa, including the area where the store is planned, has one of the largest food deserts in the city, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It’s poorer than other parts of the city too, Census figures show.

While parts of the city such as Brookside have multiple grocery stores across the street from each other, north Tulsa only has a few stores where people can find groceries.

In an area where transportation is a challenge for many, it forces some to travel long distances to find healthy food.

It’s not a unique problem to Tulsa and is seen in cities nationwide.

In many cities, it’s “always very hard to find fresh fruits and vegetables,” said Ed McMahon, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute.

“The only place for years that we’ve built any grocery stores is in the suburbs,” he said.

He said chain stores that think that there isn’t wealth in poorer parts of town could be wrong, noting that while some residents won’t have credit cards like those in wealthier areas, they might be sitting on a good deal of cash.

He said: “The first people to locate a store in there tend to do very well.”